DESCRIPTION: (provided by the applicant) This application requests renewal of our previously successful Harvard Older American's Independence Center (OAIC), but represents an exciting new direction with new leadership, new investigators committed to gerontologic research, and a new series of intervention development studies focussed on the development of interventions to overcome common, disabling, but underinvestigated geriatric conditions that threaten the independence of older Americans. Dr. Lewis A. Lipsitz, Professor of Medicine and founding member of the Harvard OAIC will serve as principal investigator. The Harvard OAIC aims to prevent and ameliorate cognitive and functional disability in elderly patients through the conduct of translational gerontologic research, the development of new investigators skilled in gerontologic research, and the dissemination of information about research findings that can maximize the independence of elderly people. This effort represents a major, multi-institutional, multidisciplinary collaboration among faculty from Harvard's Division on Aging and affiliated clinical and academic institutions. This proposal builds upon the previous accomplishments, infrastructure, and collaborative relationships of the Harvard OAIC. It includes 3 intervention development studies (Noise-Enhanced Sensorimotor Function in Aging and Disease, by James Collins, PhD; Cardiovascular Risk and Frontal Dysfunction in Black Elders, by William Milberg, PhD; and Delirium Risk Recovery and Relation to Cognitive Decline. by Sue Levkoff, SiD and Edward Marcantonio, MD); a Research Development Core led by Douglas Kiel, MD, David Calkins, MD, and Kenneth Minaker, MD; 3 Research Resources Cores (Subject Recruitment Core, led by Roberta Rosenberg, MEd and Lewis Lipsitz, MD; Bioengineering/Basic Science Core, led by Jeff Hausdorff, PhD; and an Evaluation/Biostatistics Core, led by Janice Weinberg, ScD); a Demonstration and Information Dissemination Project led by Roberta Rosenberg, MEd and Sue Levkoff, ScD; and a Leadership and Administration Core led by Lewis Lipsitz, MD. Harvard's commitment to the future of its Division on Aging, its strong basic and clinical research programs, a talented faculty, outstanding academic resources, and well-established relationships with Boston's multiethnic communities, will all help assure the success of this program.